Censors Could Make U.S. the Land of Bland

Recent news items:

* RENO--Members of British heavy-metal group Judas Priest testify in a trial in which they are accused of planting subliminal messages in songs that allegedly triggered the self-inflicted deaths of two fans.

* PHOENIX--A supermarket chain pulls copies of “The Little Mermaid” home video from its shelves because a customer complains of finding a phallic symbol in the cover artwork.

* KANSAS CITY, Mo.--Two newspapers refuse to run this week’s Doonesbury comic strips because they show a female character wearing nothing but rope and a bucket and spouting provocative language.

Any of these stories should be enough to send a thinking adult away shaking his or her head in disbelief.

Yet, even taken together, they represent only a smattering of cases where citizens, in their zeal to do the right thing, seem intent on turning America the Beautiful into the land of the bland, the home of the straitjacketed.

Take the case of the poor “Little Mermaid.” She was sitting on shelves in video stores and supermarkets around the country, minding her own business, when that woman in Phoenix complained that she had found a (gasp) phallic symbol on the underwater castle on the cover. The woman insisted that the video be withdrawn, so as not to pollute innocent minds. (Speaking of which, what was she doing searching for phalluses in Disney cartoons?) And, instead of shrugging off the complaint as a case of someone with too much time on her hands, the store’s management knuckled under.

Then there are the two Midwest newspapers--one in Indiana and one in Missouri (the, ahem, “Show Me” state)--that pulled the plug on Doonesbury’s commentary on the ruckus over the National Endowment for the Arts and artistic censorship. The editors who decided against running the strips claimed they weren’t appropriate to the comics, which appeal to readers of all ages.

I hope they don’t take a hard look at the “Love Is . . . “ strip, which features young male and female characters wearing no clothes. Sometimes together. And they are always talking about love. This appears every day.

Heave. Grunt. Pant.

Probably the most amazing story, though, is the one about the families suing CBS Records and Judas Priest because two youths killed themselves after a heavy session of drinking, smoking pot and listening to Judas Priest’s 1978 “Stained Class” album.

The plaintiffs are out to prove that 1) there were subliminal messages saying “Do it” implanted on the album and that 2) these messages caused the two boys to take their own lives. (One died instantly; the other lived, horribly disfigured, for three years after the suicide attempt and then died of related complications.)

“Whether the judge rules in our favor or not, I feel like we’ve already won,” one mother said. “This case has brought so much public attention to the issue. The problems with heavy-metal music are finally out in the open. Bands are beginning to be censored, and I’m happy about it.”

It’s hard to fault parents for grieving over a child’s suicide, or for desperately feeling the need to place blame--but not when they start grasping at straws. And certainly not when attorneys set their sights on a likely victim (i.e., one with loads of money) and swim hungrily in for the kill.

According to court records, one of these boys came from a home where his mother had been married four times; where, as a youth, he was physically abused by his stepfather and reportedly was whipped with a belt. Both youths dropped out of school in the 10th grade and both used alcohol, marijuana, amphetamines and cocaine, among other substances.

Yet at least one of the mothers still blames the music, saying, “Heavy metal changed his personality. When James started listening to Judas Priest, he lost all respect for authority.” This even though, 12 years earlier, at the age of 8, respectful young James, according to testimony, tried to choke that selfsame mother while she was driving him home from school. And that was five years before Judas Priest was ever heard from on record.

Respect for authority that large could be lost in the space between a bee’s teeth.

I suppose if this kid had spent his teen years watching the ballet, those physical and emotional blows would have just bounced right off him, and he’d be just fine today.

Texas rocker Joe Ely wrote a song a few years ago called “Dig All Night” in which he pinpointed this creeping virus of finger-pointing and the chronic shortage of personal responsibility infecting our society:

I’m sitting here wondering:

The world’s gone to hell.

Can we blame someone else

For the trouble we’re in?

In a big easy chair

At the world we stare

As the world caves in

And it ain’t no wonder

Why we don’t get a break.

It’s so easy to find

Someone else’s mistake.

The ripples can be felt right here in our own neighborhoods, from worrywarts who perceive threats from rap bands and theater producers to city councils that enact laws to fashion a world in which nothing ever offends anyone anywhere. The notion of learning to handle life’s daily irritations apparently has given way to efforts to eliminate them all.

Somewhere along the dusty road to cultural maturity, we seem to have lost our grip on the all-important tolerance upon which this country was founded. In most of these examples, it’s equally clear that we’ve mislaid any sense of humor.

Heaven forbid the time has come when we should look to Michael Jackson as a role model, but as long as we’re quoting song lyrics, maybe we’d be better off spending more time trying to grasp the meaning of The Buckled One’s hit “Man in the Mirror” than looking for pornography in Disney videos or suicide instructions in Judas Priest records:

If you wanna make the world a better place,

Take a look at yourself and then make a change.